Project of
wide-body Airbus-class airliner for mid-range routes was initiated in
1991.
It is the first attempt of the
Antonov ANTK
to develope aircraft of this class. Special attention was paid to aircraft reliability -
the plane was designed according to damage tolerance approach: fatigue cracks were not
allowed to cause catastrophic failure between scheduled maintenance inspections.

An-218 design includes solutions, technologies and schemes developed for commercial
cargo planes An-124 and
An-70. Parts and components of series
Tu-204 airliner are used. Production was
planned at Ukraina in cooperation with Russian aircraft plants.

Landing gear construction allows to operate An-218 from same airfield used by the
Tu-154M and
Tu-204. This expands service area from 19 used by
the closest analog Il-86 to more than 50. It is
estimated that fuel consumption per passenger per km may be almost half of
the Il-86. New aircraft also has to surpass
Il-86 and Tu-154M
on passenger comfort, cargo handling and serviceability.

Perspective modification include long-range variant for 200 to 220 seats and
stretched version carrying up to 400 passengers.

On-board electronics and navigation equipment corresponds to IIIA ICAO requirements.
Pilots cockpit has high degree of automatization, flight control and monitoring system
includes six multi-color multi-functional displays.

An-218 had technical documentation supposed to be ready in
1991,
and first flight was scheduled for
1994.
C.I.S. certification was planned for
1995.